“Large-scale weather forecasts are made using sophisticated computer programmes that model a virtual world. The accuracy of the output of such a model depends on the quality of the input.
“One of the usual sources of input is an aircraft, feeding back real-time wind data.
“The coronavirus pandemic has considerably reduced the number of aircraft operating. As a result, the incoming information has dropped and forecast winds at cruise height can no longer be verified and the feedback loop into the global model is much weaker.”
“…these are extraordinary times along the Great Lakes. High water records are falling throughout the region less than a decade after the lakes hit record lows.
“Millions are being spent to combat erosion threatening homes and infrastructure.”
“A large storm continues to march across the country, with heavy snow in the West and hail in San Francisco Bay area. Up to a foot of snow was measured from California to Wyoming and Montana as parts of I-80 had to be shut down overnight due to the snow covered roads.
“By Thursday night into early Friday morning, the entire western storm will move into the Plains and is expected to bring severe weather to the region.”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/severe-storm-moving-country-flooding-south-braces-record/story?id=69807378
“High temperatures soared into the 80s and 90s across much of the southern United States on Thursday as an unusually potent heat wave for late March got underway.
“Temperatures easily made it into the mid 90s across Texas and Oklahoma, with one community in southwestern Oklahoma maxing out at 100°F.”
““We took ketchup.”
“This is the only food Karl Bretzendorfer remembers taking up to the attic where he spent 13 days trapped with his wife Irina, as the waters rose around them in what Chancellor Angela Merkel called “the flood of the century” in the state of Bavaria, south-east Germany.”
“Extreme heat in December 2019 and January 2020 – a major feature of the heatwave for this period wasn’t just the extremity of the heat, but the extent of it.
“This saw in area-averaged records for the hottest day being exceeded for Australia…”
https://www.qt.com.au/news/weather-explained-why-2019-was-warmest-driest-on-r/3982031/
“Before the fires, drought had decimated livestock in the region, and after the inferno came a flood that washed ash into the estuaries, destroying all oyster farmers’ plans to harvest.
“And now, as entire cities across the country lock down amid the COVID-19 crisis, a section of NSW that’s been holding its breath for months is being pushed under once again.”
“On a continent [Africa] that has suffered repeated outbreaks of Ebola and is now fighting the coronavirus, the locusts may pose no less of a challenge.
Hundreds of billions of them have conquered territory in at least eight countries, overwhelming governments and aid organizations while consuming crops and grazing land so rapidly that experts fear widespread famine.”
“If circulation of deep waters in the Atlantic stops or slows due to climate change, it could cause cooling in northern North America and Europe – a scenario that has occurred during past cold glacial periods.
“Now, a new study suggests that short-term disruptions of deep ocean circulation occurred during warm interglacial periods in the last 450,000 years, and may happen again.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200326144353.htm
“The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing steadily, having recently reached the highest concentration in human history.
“While that’s undoubtedly bad news for the planet, one argued silver lining is that plants are better off due to more of their food being in the air. But a new study has dashed those hopes…”
https://newatlas.com/environment/trees-atmospheric-co2-effects-heat-drought/
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